Riding The Roller Coaster

Judges 15:14, "And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands."

In this instance strong flax ropes bound Samson, but when the Spirit of the Lord moved upon him, he just popped the ropes like they were made of thread, then he picked up the jawbone of a donkey and killed 1000 of the Philistine soldiers

Even this great victory was contrasted by Samson’s weakness of the flesh. Judges 15:18, "And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?"

Can you picture this man of God who has just done a mighty thing for God against the enemies of Israel as he starts to complain about being thirsty? He was behaving like an immature child crying for something to drink. Well, so much for being a mighty man of war.

Samson must have been a sanguine personality because he was always playing with sin and doing crazy things to show that God was still with him. He would flirt with death; play the Philistines for fools and then do some wild and crazy thing to get even with them.

Judges 15:4-5, "And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives."

Judges 16:1-3, "Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her. And it was told the Gazites, saying, Samson is come hither. And they compassed him in, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, in the morning, when it is day, we shall kill him. And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron."

With all of the “flirting with sin” that Samson did it was inevitable that Satan would lay a trap to destroy him.

Samson found a beautiful young woman named Delilah! It was love at first sight and they became inseparable. Little did Samson realize that Delilah would be the instrument of his ultimate destruction. Samson just wanted to have some fun but Satan doesn’t play and he was out to kill Samson and enslave all of Israel.

Every time they would get together Delilah would attempt to discover the secret of Samson’s power. She would playfully ask him to reveal it to her with her eyelashes fluttering. That would make Samson’s heart pound and his infatuation with Delilah would make him do things and say things that he knew he should not have.

I’m sure Samson thought, “Oh what does it matter? As long as I don’t reveal the truth it’s okay. I’m just going to play along and then leave when it gets too serious!”